Cedar Center North on South Euclid has its first retailer in Gordon Foods Marketplace

SOUTH EUCLID GFS Marketplace is the first retailer to announce it will make Cedar Center North its home.

Gordon Food Service, headquartered in Grand Rapids, Mich., has targeted fall, 2011 as the opening date of its first store in eastern Cuyahoga County. The city of South Euclid announced Monday, just hours before City Council voted to allow Mayor Georgine Welo to enter into a purchase agreement, that a deal was in place.

That deal calls for GFS to pay the city $2.35 million for 1.4 acres of property at Cedar Center North, on the north side of Cedar Road, just west of Warrensville Center Road.

“We are very excited about this location,” said Suzette Murchison, Gordon Food Service Marketing Director, in a written release. “We chose the Cedar Center area because of the attractive business climate and the opportunity to expand service to our many loyal customers in the Cleveland area.”

The Cedar Center North store will be GFS’s ninth in the area, including stores in Mentor and North Olmsted.

GFS Marketplace carries exclusive and national brand restaurant-quality products, including a large selection of dairy, grocery and frozen foods, and paper and kitchen products in a variety of sizes. It allows customers to buy in bulk without membership fees, although, Community Service Director Keith Benjamin said, “You can buy just a gallon of milk if that’s what you need.

“This is the first part of the first phase,” Benjamin said of the development of the 12-acre Cedar Center North. “The second part will be the Coral Co. (the project’s developer) bringing in 35,000 square feet of retail and restaurant use. Together, these two parts of the first phase (of four phases) will take up 50,000 square feet.”

The city purchased the old Cedar Center property for $17 million just before the economy started suffering. In recent months, the city has been criticized by some residents who felt that such money should not have been spent, especially now that the city is working to reduce its budget by early next year by more than $2 million.The city has had the property’s former buildings demolished and an environmental cleanup performed. City Engineer Andy Blackley said new water main installation and infrastructure work at the site is now about 95 percent complete.

Jonathan Bauman, of the Contrende Co., who was contracted by the city to help with the project, said talks with GFS began about 1½ years ago and turned serious in April.

“I probably saved the city about $120,000 because there were no broker’s fees,” he said. “(GFS) didn’t have a broker either. I dealt directly with them. They were very good people to deal with.”

“It’s exciting that we’ll be taking what was an old shopping center, where people used to come and buy things and then leave, and making it into a place where they can spend time,” Welo said. “They can even see a concert there because we’ll have an open, public green space.

“My hope is that this will go from a desolate center to becoming a hub.”

Bauman said the GFS storefront will be brick and will be built on the west end of the center. He said a new GFS typically employs 35-40 people.

“It’s a wonderful company and a wonderful deal,” said Ward 4 Councilwoman Jane Goodman, in whose ward Cedar Center North is located. “We’re happy that they want to be part of the city’s family.”

The Coral Co. developed Cedar Center in University Heights, across the street from Cedar Center North. That company’s president, Peter Rubin, was happy about the GFS deal, and said more good news could be right around the bend.

“We’re truly pleased the first piece of the puzzle is in place,” Rubin said of GFS.

Bauman said that because Whole Foods is a tenant of University Heights’ Cedar Center, it was imperative that the city made the GFS deal happen. He said Whole Foods had a clause whereby it could prevent another food dealer from moving too close — if Coral was involved in the deal. Because the city put it together, there were no such restrictions.

Rubin said that plans to put residences at Cedar Center are on hold as state funding for such construction in phase one did not materialize. He hopes to make the housing a part of a later phase.

Meanwhile, Rubin said, despite the economy, there are retailers looking to build at Cedar Center North.

“There are more than a few leases on my desk ready for us to sign,” he said, noting that more work must be put in before signing can take place.

“There are three leases all ready to be signed, and another two that are near, too.”

Rubin said these leases, or at least most of them, could be finalized in October.

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